The time has come to get the ball rolling on the 2012 Eastern PA Instructional Mini-Jam.

Specifically, I'm looking for volunteer instructors for the subjects listed below. Last year's instructors did a fine job, and will be given first shot at the topics they instructed at last year's Jam.

So far, I'm looking at Saturday, March 24th, from 8AM - 4PM. Location is TBD, but I'm trying to get an indoor classroom with special regs waters nearby so we can fish in the afternoon. I'd like to keep the bulk of the non-casting instruction indoors (warm and dry), so we don't freeze our butts off like last year.

Here's the tentative itinerary for the event - please post below if you'd like to instruct any of the sessions, and we'll converse via PM about it.

Fox - If it does change, it might be the 17th. Have to wait to see what the folks at the site I'm trying to book have to say.

It's not easy to find a place that can house 50+ people in a classroom setting, with regs waters close by. Don't really want to go earlier than the 17th for temperature reasons, and the 31st is opening day. Kinda between a rock and a hard place, as I see it.

I'm willing barring unforseen circumstances. Don't put me on knots or casting. Though on the latter, I'd be happy to do a small stream casting instruction as a sidebar or something, it can be informal.

Didn't we discuss something about, if # of volunteers are sufficient, we could have multiple "stations" going on at once? It allows the attendees to choose what they need most. It allows smaller group size for each teacher and more personal instruction. And it allows you to expand the topic choice in the time frame given. If filling space is the issue, pick what you think would be the most popular topics and have em go twice, I'm pretty sure most of the volunteers would happily talk twice to smaller groups, and it gives the attendees more choice to hit what they want and not miss anything.

It's just a thought for discussion. I was a little surprised how well attended it was last year. That's a good thing. But I remember questioning whether it hurt the effectiveness. The teacher talking as loud as he can and the group of "pupils" still struggling to hear. That may be better indoors than it was outside on a windy day. But still, a class of 10 or so is much easier to interact with and tailor to their interests and answer personal questions than a class of 20, and IMO, that'd make a better experience for everyone.

Also, by kind of forcing people to make choices, you probably encourage some to go to the casting intruction earlier in the day, avoiding the light turnout followed by Old Lefty (if he's willing and capable with the leg) getting rushed as soon as the other talks finish.

If someone from the better part of the state (west side) wants to organize this years that would be great. My wife's due March 14th and I doubt I'll know before hand if I can make it. I thought last years was a great success. (minus the stream being blown out)

Location: Wildlands Conservacy Classroom (on the Little Lehigh). They're really excited to be hosting this event! Their facility is perfect for this, and we'll be set for whatever Mother Nature throws our way. Surveyor06 won't have to tie with his gloves on this year.

The sooner we establish our itinerary, the better. I have to send it to the director of the Wildlands Conservancy so she can advertise this event through her channels. This could be HUGE......

It seems that paflyfish has established an extremely positive rapport with our local conservation agencies, and they're thrilled to roll out the red carpet for us.

After discussing this with pcray, we're gonna try a different format. Those times I posted in post #1 - forget them.

We're gonna have stations setup for each topic. Depending on how many volunteer instructors we have, we may have up to all of the topics going on at the same time. This will eliminate time limits for the instructors, and allow the students to jump around to stations where they feel they need help. Each instructor will then have smaller "class" sizes, and will have the option to do more than one group presentation throughout the morning.

We're also taking suggestions for additional topics to be covered. I'll leave this open for two weeks from today, and then I have to send in the finalized itinerary to the Wildlands Conservancy.

Yeah, Ed and I had a good discussion yesterday. He's doing a lot to make this happen and we should all thank him for it!

With the conservancy helping advertise, this could become a much bigger event. Last year was bigger than expected, I think. And it could grow a lot this year. We really don't know. It's a big step forward in the end, but the unknowns do add some questions in planning, and we now have a narrower timeline to come up with answers.

I personally thought, that if we do get a lot of people, having one guy in front of 50 or something in a classroom is just not as personal and it's not what most beginners are really looking for, which is to interact personally with more experienced members, ask questions, pick brains, etc. I think maintaining that aspect has to be goal #1.

We'll come up with the most efficient way we can to do that, given time and space constraints, expected attendance, and volunteer support. But in order to do so, we need to answer some questions. Namely:

1. How many volunteers do we have? Volunteers, please raise your hands. I realize this far ahead of time it's tough to commit. Give Ed a best guess. There will be changes later, I'm sure, but probably about as many additions as subtractions, and we can always twist arms if needed. We need a basic estimate for planning purposes. This is extremely important as it determines how much we can do.

2. How many attendees? We're not gonna ultimately answer this one for a while. But if you know you intend to come, let us know ASAP. Again, we won't hunt you down if you back out later. We're looking for basic estimates, the more we know, the better off we are.

3. Attendees, what do you want us to cover? It's likely we'll have room for more topics. How many remains TBD. But as this is all FOR the attendees, the attendees should play a part in determining what they want out of it. Please throw topic ideas out there that you would like to see.

How about State College, PA Maybe you could check with someone at Penn State involved with the PSU Fly Fishing Club and see if you could use one of the classrooms in the ASI building. That is only 10 or 15 minutes away from Spring Creek. There is also a very nice Country Club located in Lock Haven, PA that is located right on Fishing Creek. They have a large banquet room upstairs and a great restaurant down stairs. They might be interested in letting you use that if you were going to have some food and beverages along with the classes. Let me know if you are interested and I could contact them.

The location is set, Wildlands Conservancy classroom in Allentown, PA.

A similar event has sprang up in Western PA. I'm sure mods would be open to someone starting a central PA event as well, provided someone is willing to organize and take responsibility for it. But it would be a separate event.